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A Cryptid is an animal which is not yet known to modern science, such as Bigfoot, Mothman, or the Loch Ness Monster. Sometimes, a show that is not usually focused on them will have an episode or two about them.

This type of episode can be used as a characterisation exercise, establishing some of the characters as believers and others as skeptics.

The characters find a cryptid early in the episode, and spend the episode trying to look after it/hide it/help it find its way home.

Characters are traveling on holiday and encounter one. (Abominable Snowman seems to be the most common one for this, what with mountain getaways and Christmas Episodes providing plenty of snowy settings).

Examples:

Kagewani showcases cryptids being investigated by Profesor Banba in a monster of the week format. It also shows their aggression towards civilians caught up in their attack.

Lupin III: Fujiko's singing voice attracts the Loch Ness Monster, Lupin is tasked with collecting tears from a yeti, the entire gang goes after a mermaid's treasure... this sort of plot has happened a few times... In the anime Lupin III, at least.

In an episode of The '90sSailor Moon, they find a sea monster while on vacation. It doesn't have any connection to the magic of the show.

Engaged to the Unidentified has an episode where the cast leave the city for a while and may or may not have found an analogue to Nessie.

One season's shorts in Yokai Watch had Komasan and Komajiro recruited in a series to explore legends and mysteries, some of which were finding cryptids. The man that recruited them (poorly) faked them all only for Komasan to witness their existence as they leave.

Literature

Goosebumps uses either stock monsters (vampires, werewolves, mummies, etc.) or original ones, the sole exception being The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena.

In the short story "The Convenient Monster", The Saint uncovers a murder that looks like the work of the Loch Ness Monster. At the end of the story, the murderer is killed by the actual Loch Ness Monster.

High Rhulain, one of the Redwall books, contains the Slothunog, an obvious Loch Ness Monster expy. It's notable for being the only instance in the entire series where Brian Jacques deviated from his rule of only using real animals.

Live Action TV

The Bones episode focusing on the Chupacabra cryptid uses it as a way to explore the difference in worldviews between rational, scientific female lead and her more open-minded male partner.

Sherlock season 2 episode "The Hounds of Baskerville" centers around a mysterious "hound" that apparently killed the client's father in his childhood, near the Baskerville military installation. Sherlock and John chase this strange creature for the majority of the episode until it's realized they were suffering under the effects of a powerful hallucinogenic vapor that was being disseminated in a nearby wooded area. The client's father was killed because he figured out what was happening in that area and a researcher working on the project, a man he thought was his friend, had to silence him.

The X-Files had enough cryptid episodes to stuff the Berlin Zoo full with them. And often subverted (and double subverted) them. A rampaging lake monster turns out to be a killer alligator while at the end the lake monster surfaces, unseen by anyone and a group of greys walking down a hill at an environmental spill turn out to be misidentification of men in hazmat suits.

While most of the creatures in Primeval weren't connected to any real-life mythology, occasionally one would turn out to be the source of a legendary creature or cryptid. The most notable examples were the Dracorex (a dinosaur mistaken for a dragon), the "Mer-creatures", the gremlin-like "camouflage creatures", and the Pristichampsus (implied to be the inspiration for the Egyptian monster Ammut).

Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance's "Snake Tale E - External Gazer" is a story about Snake being sent by Otacon to photograph a weird sea monster that's been spotted in New York. Otacon is curious about what this means for the sciences, Mei Ling wants it in a zoo, and Snake doesn't believe it exists (and has to fight it, obviously). The sea monster is a giant version of the Mook soldiers you fight in the main game with a fin on its head, though this is never mentioned in the plot.

In Metal Gear Solid 3, it is possible to capture the Japanese cryptid the tsuchinoko, which causes Zero to order you not to eat it and to bring it back home. If you successfully return it you get the rank 'tsuchinoko' and stealth camouflage to use. (If you eat it, it tastes delicious.) Only one exist in the game.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker contains a chunk of Monster Hunter-pastiche missions where the player gets to fight and harvest meat from dinosaur-like monsters referred to in-universe as UM As, including Gear Rex (a non-"metal" version of Metal Gear REX). It also contains ghost photography missions where you must detect and photograph ghost guards.

Earthworm Jim had an episode, "Trout!" where Jim drags Peter on a road trip after seeing a (obviously faked) postcard of a 'Giant Fur-bearin' Trout'. At the same time, Queen Slug-For-A-Butt is on earth searching for said fish, as, for some bizarre reason, Professor Monkey-For-A-Head's newest weapon is powered by fish-hair. Jim almost gives up after going to the maker of said postcard who admitted it was a fake, but is drawn by a vision which actually does lead him to the Giant Fur-bearin' Trout, which he must protect from the queen.

In the Futurama episode "Spanish Fry", Fry goes to look for Bigfoot, who appears at the end to act as a Deus ex Machina.

The "Little Bigfoot" episode of Sam & Max: Freelance Police has Sam trying to rescue a young Bigfoot working as a busboy and return him to the wild. It turns out he wasn't a Bigfoot, just the son of a sideshow freak.

Interestingly, the Scooby-Doo franchise usually makes up its own monsters from scratch. When Those Meddling Kidsdo encounter a famous cryptid such as Nessie or the Chupacabra, it tends to happen in a feature-length story rather than a routine episode.

In Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, the discovery of the legendary Hodag turns out to be a hoax as usual, but it's perpetrated BY the meddling kids and they get away with it.

The Secret Saturdays are about a family that both hunt and protect various cryptids, making the entire series an extended Cryptid Episode.

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